December 29, 2015

SAILING, FOR MANY GOOD
REASONS, tends to be regarded by the general public as a complicated and
expensive pastime. But it needn’t be. Small simple boats can afford pleasure
and gratification out of all proportion to their cost. And small gentle voyages
can generate as much joy and satisfaction as long adventurous ones.

The man or woman who
gingerly sails a dinghy along a friendly shore is no less worthy of our respect
than the sailor who braves the mighty ocean.

We all have our own areas
of anxiety and doubt in our own abilities, and when we conquer our fears it is
just as much a triumph to cross the bay as it is for someone of sterner nature
to cross an ocean.

And yet, human nature
being what it is, we tend to judge other sailors by the size of their boats and
how far they’ve traveled: their most distant ports, and the length of their
voyages.

Now it is true that
sailors who cross oceans in small boats perform prodigious feats of seamanship
because they sail the same seas as big ships that have large crews specializing
in the various skills needed to move people and cargoes across oceans. Sailboat
sailors are their own cooks and navigators. They are their own engineers and
riggers. They handle the sails and anchors and electrical circuits. And they
face exactly the same hazards as large ships, including the storms, the rocks,
and even pirates.

Yet, at the same time, to
take a small boat across a body of water of any size is no small feat. To each
his own goals and ambitions. We all set our own limits, and who can gainsay our
individual achievements? What we all seek deep down is a feeling of ability, of
achievement, of confidence. And sailing a small boat on a small voyage often
does generate the confidence we need to deal with the greater troubles the
world constantly throws at us.

Seamanship is as much a
set of the mind as anything else. You are the only judge of your seamanship. We
challenge ourselves, we feel fear, and sometimes we get more fear than we
bargained for, but we learn and we gain confidence, and are not as frightened
quite as much the next time. And there always is a next time for those who
challenge themselves.

Today’s
Thought

Keep
your fears to yourself, but share your courage.

— R. L. StevensonTailpiece

Mary had a little lamb

That leaped around in hops

It hopped into the road
one day

And ended up as chops.

(Drop by every Monday, Wednesday, Friday for a new Mainly about
Boats column.)

December 27, 2015

SOMETIMES I just sits and thinks.
And sometimes I just sits. But on those rare occasions when I think, I think
there are two major problems for the world to solve. The first is how to store
electricity more efficiently. The second is how to transmit large amounts of electricity
without wires.

Solving the second problem would
make the first problem moot, of course, but since neither is anywhere near
solution, it doesn’t really matter.

At present we hobble along by
storing electricity in batteries. They aren’t very efficient. Think how often
people have to charge their cell phones. They aren’t even safe. Think how many
lithium-ion batteries overheat and catch fire in cell phones and Boeing 787s.

As far as transmitting electricity
without wires goes, Tesla, the Great Electrician, was demonstrating 100 or more
years ago that he could do it over short distances. And that is how radio
works, too, of course. But what we need is a method of transmitting much larger
amounts of electricity directly through space to the appliances or motors that
need it, without frying up any soft-fleshed human beings who get in its way.

Imagine how the world would change
if cars and trucks could drive endlessly on electric power. Better yet, imagine
how it would change boats. No more smelly, heavy, complicated internal
combustion engines. Think how the mammals of the sea would appreciate that.

But then, I think, if boats could
use electricity to go anywhere in the world they liked, with power transmitted
from satellites, or reflected by satellites, would anybody bother to sail any
more?

Most small powerboats can’t carry
enough fuel to cross oceans. You need a sailboat to do that. But if you could
use clean quiet electricity to explore the glories of the South Seas, or cruise
your own coastline, and go directly where you wanted, even if it were against
the wind, why would anyone want a sailboat?

Of course, there is a glamour to
sailing, a direct connection to the old days of the sailing ships and the
mysteries and customs of the sea, which itself hasn’t changed in all the centuries
we’ve known it.

We all know and understand that
sailboats are largely impractical, but there is something about them that
touches the human heart.

So when I thinks that it’s pretty
certain that sooner or later mankind will invent a better battery or learn to transmit
electricity, I also wonders if it will mean the days of sailboats are over, and
how soon that might happen.

Today’s
Thought

Indebtedness
to oxygen

The
chemist may repay,

But
not the obligation

To
electricity.

— Emily Dickinson, Poems

Tailpiece

“Angela darling, the bank has
returned your check.”

“Oh, wow, that’s great. What shall
we buy with it this time?”

(Drop by every Monday, Wednesday,
Friday for a new Mainly about Boats column.)

December 24, 2015

I WAS WONDERING what people
might be giving their boats for Christmas when my eye fell upon an old 2008 advertisement
for a Garmin Rino 530HCx. I have never seen one, but the Garmin company is
famous for GPS navigation instruments and the Rino seems to be a departure from
the norm.

For a start, it can’t
spell its name. It should be Rhino, not Rino. It has two antennas that look
vaguely like the horns of a rhinoceros. In Africa, game poachers often saw off
a rhino’s horns and sell them to customers in the Far East, who grind them down
into a powder that reputedly has aphrodisiacal powers.

Frankly, I’ve never
understood how that works. You swallow some powder and suddenly women look
attractive to you? What? Who needs rhino powder? Didn’t they always look
attractive to you? But wait . . . I’m getting carried away here. Sorry. Back to
the Rino:

It probably isn’t a good
idea to saw off the Rino’s antennas, no matter how much of a boost your
testosterone needs. I suspect something won’t work if you do that. Something on
the Rino, that is.

The interesting new
direction this hand-held GPS was taking was evident from its attributes as
listed in the advertisement. Besides a color screen that shows where you are on
a chart, there are two built-in radios. One is a Family Service Radio, a
glorified walkie-talkie. The other is a General Mobile Radio Service radio, a
rather more sophisticated mobile transceiver for which you need an $85 license.

In addition to GPS and two
radios, the Rino has a barometric altimeter. This tells you how high you are
getting, which is very useful in a season of sequential Christmas parties.
There is also an electronic compass so you can find your way home if you are
too high to read the GPS screen. In addition, there is a built-in weather radio
that informs you what kind of storm struck you on the way home.

There’s more, but I’m sure
you can see which way the new generation of electronic gadgets is headed: One
GPS does it all. I can’t wait to see what they add to the next generation of
GPSs, but in case any Garmin people read this column, I’d like to suggest some
additions to the new “omnibus” Rino GPS.

It would be real nice,
guys, if you could add a night telescope so people can find their slips after
dark. And how about a few rocket flares to help the search-and-rescue people
find lost sailors? A small bar would be very welcome, just a little one, of
course, perhaps with miniature French maids dispensing cocktails etc., to the
shivering bodies in the cockpit on the midnight watch.

I suppose it would be too
much to expect a modest galley with a European chef skilled in confiture and
baguettes. No matter. Most sailors I know would settle for a GPS with a
fish-and-chips dispenser.

Today’s
Thought

I
find the sea-life an acquired taste, like that for tomatoes and olives.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Season’s
greetings

I wish you all a merry
Christmas, a happy Hanukah, and best wishes for whatever celebration you choose
to observe at this time of year. I wish you peace and tranquility to calm your
soul, and I wish you fortitude to face life as she presents herself in the New
Year.

December 22, 2015

THIS IS THE TIME OF YEAR when many
are so busy with parties and presents and family and Christmas trees that their
boats tend to be neglected. It's not such a bad thing, as long as the neglect
is not long-lasting. Boating fever can resume with fervor after a refreshing
break, and we can all look forward to a new season of sailing in the coming
spring.

As long as there had been Christmas,
it has been thus. In fact, 100 years ago this is what Thomas Fleming Day,
editor of The Rudder, had to say
about it:

"When Winter gets up his hook
and stands offshore, the boat fever comes on strong and the itch to be away on
the blue again takes hold of us. Sunday finds the boys sidling off towards the
yards and wading around in the slush looking over the laid-up craft.

"They walk round and round
them, peer at the stern, eye the bow, comment on the spars, find fault with the
bottom, and curse the price that makes it not for them. Year after year this is
our amusement. Spring after spring we go through the same yards, see the same
boats, and express the same opinions regarding their appearance and condition.
If those boats have ears, how tired they must get, how weary of the silly
comments that the boat-fevered busybody makes each March under their hulls.

"A few weeks after, the yard is
almost cleared, except here and there a poor old cripple or rich man's
forgotten plaything is left standing surrounded by a raffle of timber and
truck. Over by the fence, lying on its side, is a once crack-a-jack racer, too
rotten to be moved and going rapidly to punk.

"And we look on her and think
of the days when we will be lying up against the fence, dismantled and broken,
while our successors are out cleaving the blue and making a mainsheet haul of
health and happiness."

uWell, he ended
up a little maudlin, there, didn't he? I guess he was rather depressed after a
Christmas that had gone on too long and kept him away from his boat.

But we, as his successors, can look
forward happily to cleaving the blue once again. So Happy Christmas. Happy
Hanukah. Happy Kwanzaa.

Today's
Thought

Christmas
is a time when kids tell Santa what they want and adults pay for it. Deficits
are when adults tell the government what they want — and their kids pay for it.

— Richard Lamm, former Governor of
Colorado.

Tailpiece

"My girlfriend thinks I'm a
stalker."

"Your girlfriend thinks
that?"

"Yeah, well, she's not actually
my girlfriend yet."

(Drop by every Monday, Wednesday,
Friday for a new Mainly about Boats column.)

December 20, 2015

A
few years ago some of my landlubber acquaintances asked me what they should
give for Christmas to their friends who own boats. I responded with a column of
advice. I’m not sure that it did any good, but I’m thinking there’s no harm in
repeating it now. So here goes:

TINKLE-TINKLE, TINKLE-TINKLE. The
man with the kettle is reminding us to give, and give generously. This week
there will be sailors all over the world who are receiving Christmas gifts from
non-sailors. And it is to the non-sailors that this column is directed.

All right . . . listen up now, you lot. What are the
traditional gifts a non-sailor like you gives a sailor? I’ll tell you: a couple
of battens for the mainsail. A stainless shackle or two for the bosun’s bag. A
woolly watch cap for cold weather . . . let’s face it folks, I’m sorry, but
this is not generous giving. The sailor in your life deserves better.

Now, heavens above, before you
protest, let it not be thought that I am a purveyor of ingratitude. I believe
as much as the next man that it is more blessed to give than to receive. I,
too, believe it’s the thought that counts. I also believe that you should give
according to your means and I am an ardent admirer of fiscal responsibility,
thrift, frugality, prudence, parsimony and similar human traits that Mr. Roget
reminds me of in his thoughtful Thesaurus.

On the other hand, the problem
facing us today is that your average sailor does not want a silly hat or
another mainsail batten to add to the pile of spares already cluttering the
cockpit locker. What he really wants is a couple of gallons of anti-fouling
paint at $150 a gallon. Or a 35-pound CQR anchor for $600. Or a new color GPS
chartplotter for $800. Or a jib furling system for $2,000. Or a new diesel
engine.

Yeah, wow, a new engine. That would
please him no end. That would make a really good Christmas present. Ten
thousand ought to do it. Fifteen, maybe if they have to build new engine beds
as well. It sounds like a lot but it’s not really, honestly it’s not, when you
consider the huge amount of joy it will bring. A really huge amount of joy.
Honest.

It’s not too late to correct your
Christmas mistakes. If you haven’t been generous before, you can be generous
now. Tinkle-tinkle. Do your bit to
make a sailor happy. Truly happy. Tinkle-tinkle.
Give till it hurts. Tinkle-tinkle. I
mean, really hurts. Tinkle-tinkle. On
behalf of sailors everywhere, I thank you and wish you a Merry Christmas and a
prosperous New Year.

Today’s
Thought

Money-giving
is a very good criterion . . . of a person’s mental health. Generous people are
rarely mentally ill people.

— Dr. Karl A. MenningerTailpiece

“What’s that you’re burying?”

“Oh, just one of my chickens.”

“Chicken be darned. That looks like
my dog.”

“Yeah, right, the chicken’s inside.”

(Drop by every
Monday, Wednesday, Friday for a new Mainly about Boats column.)

December 17, 2015

MANY BOATERS eventually become
interested in yacht design — but how do you learn about it? Veteran designer
Ted Brewer suggests three methods in his book Understanding Boat Design (International Marine).

In the first place, he says, the hobbyist
can simply read about yacht design.
That sounds simple enough but it can be confusing because of conflicting
theories.Brewer says that designers
“including me, may push their own concept of the perfect hull, layout, or rig.
It is important to develop your own ideas based on facts and experience, rather
than to accept someone else’s theories.”

In the second place, he recommends
the home-study course. “The cost is moderate, but large enough to keep the
student working hard at it. “The Westlawn course is good if it is done properly
without taking all the easiest options. The Westlawn course requires serious
commitment to time and effort, but provides a thorough grounding in small-boat
design.”

In the third place is the
time-honored college degree from the Webb Institute, M.I.T., Michigan, or
another university offering a degree in naval architecture. This is for the
serious student only, of course. “Since the emphasis of the university course
is on large-ship design, it is not ideal for students of small-boat design, but
it does work. Many famous yacht designers have gone that route. The Maine
Maritime Academy offers a course in small-craft design that is worth serious
consideration as well.”

Finally, Brewer offers this piece of
advice:

“Anyone going into the yacht design
business should work as a draftsman or assistant for a reputable naval
architect for several years to gain practical experience. This is true for
university and home-study graduates. Indeed, it is best if the budding designer
works for several different architects or builders before he hangs out his
shingle because he will gain invaluable experience and practical knowledge from
each.”

Today’s
Thought

Architects
are pretty much high-class whores. We can turn down projects the way they can
turn down some clients, but we’ve both got to say yes to someone if we want to
stay in business.

— Philip Johnson, Esquire, Dec 80

Tailpiece

Four-year-old Janie had been put to bed for the night when her
little brother wandered along and tried to enter her room.
“You can’t come in, Jimmy,” she said, “cos Mom says little boys mustn’t see
little girls in their nighties.”
Jimmy went outside, closed the door, and was puzzling about this when the door
opened again.
“It’s aw wight Jimmy, you can come in now,” said Janie. “I’se tooked my nightie
off.”

(Drop by every Monday, Wednesday,
Friday for a new Mainly about Boats column.)

December 15, 2015

I WAS ONCE ASKED by
someone who had spent a long time in the sub-tropics: “What do northern sailors
do in winter?”

Well, some go skiing. Some
flee south in RVs. Some go away on cruise ships. These are the dilettantes, the
dabblers, the amateurs, the superficial tire-kickers.

And before you accuse me
of using big words you can’t understand, let me explain that a dilettante is
someone (especially someone French) who follows sailing for an amusement, a
diversion. Someone who doesn’t take sailing half seriously enough.

The real sailors are reading books of ocean adventures. They’re
studying boat plans and looking at ads for Herreshoff 28 ketches. They’re
making plans to get time off from their partners, and continue their
clandestine affairs with their boats.

They’re poking holes in
the shrink-wrap so they can get inside and sit on the saloon couch for a bit,
maybe making a cup of coffee on the stove and searching for the half-bottle of
rum they hid in the cabinet for medical emergencies.

They check the bilges for
water and crank the motor over half a turn by hand, so the impeller doesn’t
take a fatal set. They check that there’s air circulating through the cabin, to
deter mold. They switch on the VHF, listen to forecasts of raging storms, and
grin to themselves, snug in their winter refuge.

They read with delight the
logs of their past year’s cruising, and dream of those lovely lazy breezes and
warm seas. They play back in their minds, time and time again, the peaceful
nights at anchor, the early-morning call of the loon, and the shrill cry of a
kingfisher carrying breakfast back to a forest of open beaks.

The thing about serious
sailors, as opposed to those dilettantes, is that they are in love with their
boats. They can hardly bear to be parted from them. They tend and care for
them. They talk to them as if they were flesh and blood. They nurture them.
They praise their good qualities and pardon their faults.

And in that definitive
demonstration of ardor, they look back, long and hard, when they part. That’s
what real sailors do in winter.

Today’s
Thought

A
man nearly always loves for other reasons than he thinks. A lover is apt to be
as full of secrets from himself as is the object of his love from him.

— Ben Hecht

Tailpiece

“What’s the special
today?”

“Ve got fine zoop today,
sir. You like some zoop, mebbe?”

“Zoop? What’s zoop?”

“You don’t know what is
zoop? You know what is stew, yes? Vell, zoop is same ting, only looser.”

(Drop by every
Monday, Wednesday, Friday for a new Mainly about Boats column.)

December 13, 2015

WHEN I LIVED in South Africa I once
owned a 30-foot boat that had bulwarks, a caprail, and a rubrail made of
beautiful hardwood. I couldn’t help myself, I varnished it. And varnished it.
And varnished it.That hot sub-tropical sun
burned through the varnish as if it were melting butter. Every six months I
rubbed it all down and put on another two coats of varnish. But, man, it looked
beautiful. People walking past in the marina used to come to a sudden halt and
stare at it in awe.

Eventually, though, the inevitable
happened. I got sick and tired of varnishing. I was also intending to sail that
boat to America and I had plenty of other preparations to attend to. I had just
about decided to paint all that nice wood a suitable buff color that looked
almost like varnish from 20 feet away when I noticed the brightwork on another
similar boat a few berths away. It was a lovely shade of honey teak, a
transparent matte finish that always looked as if it had just been applied.

I saw the owner on board one day and
asked him what kind of varnish he used.

“It’s not varnish, it’s Deks Olje,”
he said. “It’s Norwegian magic. You just wipe it on with a rag. Rub it well in,
all over, and you’re done. Just let it soak into the wood and dry. You don’t
have to bother with fancy brushes and there’s no trouble with wind or dust.”

I couldn’t get to the boat store
fast enough. I bought a large can of Deks Olje, which, lacking any knowledge of
Norwegian,I confidently translated as
Deck Oil. The instructions claimed it was the “easiest maintenance system
afloat,” a protective traditional wood oil, an alkyd-urethane resin. I was
thrilled to have discovered it.

I spent a week removing all the old
varnish from my woodwork and sanded it smooth. It was a lot of work. I then
applied three coats of Deks Olje with a clean rag. Nothing could have been
simpler. Sure enough, it looked magnificent. It wasn’t shiny like the old
varnish, but it had a deep, warm luster that enhanced the color and grain of the
wood.

We went sailing offshore on day trials
shortly afterward, and within two weeks the combined efforts of hot sun and
warm salt water had devastated my Deks Olje. It looked terrible. Half of it
appeared simply to have been washed away, leaving bare wood already going grey.
Much of the rest had turned white, as if it were encrusted with some kind of
chemical salt. Needless to say, I was
spitting mad.

I went back to the owner of the boat
down the way. “My Deks Olje is a disaster,” I said. “How does yours stay so
nice?”

“Oh, my Zulu house servant does it,”
he said. “He comes down once a week and just applies a fresh coat. It’s the
simplest thing. Takes him half an hour.”

”Once a week?” I said. “You mean, every week?”

“Yes,” he said. “Surely you have a
servant?”

We sailed for the USA shortly
afterward. I gritted my teeth and let the sun and waves remove the rest of the
Deks Olje, which they did with remarkable efficiency. The brightwork weathered
to a dignified silver grey and needed no attention at all.

Six months later I bought a can of
good old-fashioned tung-oil varnish when we got to Fort Lauderdale, Florida,
and treated the wood to the old familiar routine. Once again, it looked
magnificent and I sold the boat a few weeks later. I didn’t tell the new owner
how soon he would have to re-varnish. I figured he was just lucky I hadn’t
slapped on another few coats of Deks Olje.

Today’s
Thought

I cannot
pretend to be impartial about the colors. I rejoice with the brilliant ones,
and am genuinely sorry for the poor browns.

— Winston Churchill, Painting as a Pleasure

Tailpiece

“Your wife tells me she found out
you dated an eye doctor in Alaska.”

“No, no, that was no eye doctor. She
was an optical Aleutian.”

(Drop by every Monday, Wednesday,
Friday for a new Mainly about Boats column.)

December 10, 2015

MODERN BOATS come
complete with many of the household appliances landlubbers take for granted
these days, including microwave ovens, but only the very biggest and most
luxurious boats have dishwashers. That leaves the rest of us to wash the dishes
by hand, often in cold salt water.

It’s not a pleasant
task, especially when it follows a satisfying meal and a mellowing beer or two,
so it’s little wonder that people try all sorts of tricks to avoid taking their
turn at washing up.

John Steinbeck knew
all about it. In 1940 the famous author sailed in a sardine boat with a small
crew to collect marine invertebrates down south of San Diego in the Gulf of
California. In his book, The Log from The
Sea of Cortez, he tells this delightful little tale:

“We carried no cook
and dishwasher; it had been understood that we would all help. But for some
time Tex had been secretly mutinous about washing dishes. At the proper times
he had things to do in the engine-room. He might have succeeded in this crime
if he had ever varied his routine, but gradually a suspicion grew on us that
Tex did not like to wash dishes.

“He denied this
vigorously. He said he liked very much to wash dishes. He appealed to our
reason. How would we like it, he argued, if we were forever in the engine-room,
getting our hands dirty? There was danger down there too, he said. Men had been
killed by engines. He was not willing to see us take the risk.

“We met his arguments
with a silence that made him nervous. He protested then that he had once washed
dishes from west Texas to San Diego without stopping, and that he had learned
to love it so much that he didn’t want to be selfish about it now.

“A circle of cold eyes
surrounded him. He began to sweat. He said that later (he didn’t say how much
later) he was going to ask us for the privilege of washing all the dishes, but
right now he had a little job to do in the engine room. It was for the safety
of the ship, he said. No one answered him. Then he cried, ‘My God, are you going
to hang me?’

“At last Sparky spoke
up, not unkindly but inexorably. ‘Tex,’ he said, ‘you’re going to wash ’em or you’re going to sleep with ’em.’

“Tex said, ‘Now just
as soon as I do one little job there’s nothing I’d rather do than wash four or
five thousand dishes.’

“Each of us picked up
a load of dishes, carried them in, and laid them gently on Tex’sbunk. He got up resignedly then and carried
them back and washed them. He didn’t grumble, but he was broken. Some joyous
light had gone out of him, and he never did get the catsup out of his
blankets.”

Today’s
Thought

Let
us be grateful to Adam, our benefactor. He cut us out of the “blessing” of
idleness and won for us the “curse” of labor.

— Mark Twain, Pudd’nhead Wilson’s Calendar

Tailpiece

A woman who heard a
5-year-old girl swearing like a trooper in a city parkreported her to the park keeper. He went up
to the little girl and said:“I hear
there’s someone in the park who’s using very naughty language.”

“Who told you that?”
demanded the girl sharply.

“A bird whispered it
in my ear,” said the park keeper.

“I’ll be damned,” said
the girl. “And to think I’ve been feeding the ungrateful little bastards.”

(Drop by every Monday, Wednesday, Friday for a
new Mainly about Boats column.)

December 8, 2015

WHEN I WALK AROUND our local marina
I can hardly believe how many boats lack anchor rollers. What were the
manufacturers thinking? Thirty footers and bigger, without any proper means of
retrieving the anchor and its rode. Did they imagine their boats would never
ever anchor, from choice or necessity?

In my humble opinion, no boat over
20 feet in length should be allowed to leave the factory without a proper
anchor roller at the bow.

Anyone who has ever tried to weigh
anchor by hand in a boat without a bow roller knows how awkward and difficult
it is. Consequently, you’ll notice that all sorts of after-market rollers get
bolted on by boat owners seeking to ease the pain of retrieving the anchor.
Some of them look far too flimsy for the job. Some stick out from behind the
forestay at an odd angle. Others have to be bolted on top of a bed of teak to
bring them to the correct level. And they’re not cheap, either. A reasonably
sized one that will house the anchor costs in the region of $200 with shipping.
And then you have all the fun of fitting it yourself.

I was lucky enough to own a boat
that was designed from the beginning to have an anchor roller. It was part of a
simple bronze fitting that incorporated the bow chainplate, a bow roller, and
the stemhead fitting to which the forestay attached. I blessed its little heart
every time I weighed anchor, which I was able to do sitting down on deck behind
it and bracing my feet in the anchor well.

In the days of my youth I used to be
able to raise that way a 35-pound CQR on an all-chain 5/16-inch rode in 90 feet
of water. But when I later bought a 27-foot Cape Dory with a built-in roller,
my anchor weighed only 25 pounds and there was only 30 feet of 1/4-inch chain;
the rest was nylon line. So I had it a lot easier and I was very grateful.

I can only imagine that unscrupulous
boat manufacturers deliberately omit a bow roller in an effort to keep the
selling price down a few bucks. It’s a wicked practice, like selling a new car
without a horn, or without a spare tire. If I were in charge of the
boat-manufacturing industry I would make it a federal crime to sell a boat
without an anchor roller. But since they’re never likely to elect me to that
position, the situation is unlikely to change unless we all start complaining
to our representatives in Congress.

Never mind Obamacare for the moment.
Never mind Trump and Isis and Iran and North Korea. Forget all that for now.
Surprise your elected U.S. representative. Ask him or her to sponsor
legislation about bow rollers. You never know. It might be such a refreshing
change from the same-old, same-old, that Washington DC could catch fire with
enthusiasm for compulsory bow rollers. And if that means some boat
manufacturers will end up behind bars, so be it. They deserve it.

Today’s
Thought

The
law is the last result of human wisdom acting upon human experience for the
benefit of the public.

—Samuel Johnson, Miscellanies

Tailpiece

“Did you know old Joe survived
mustard gas and pepper spray?”

“No. How’s he doing?”

“Oh he’s a seasoned veteran now.”

(Drop by every
Monday, Wednesday, Friday for a new Mainly about Boats column.)

December 6, 2015

IT OCCURS TO ME now and then that
I’ve written and repeated just about everything I know about boats and the sea,
and that my readers must be getting just a tad bored with it all. But then I
remember that new generations keep coming along, generations that have to learn
all the same old things all over again, because humans don’t seem to be able to
pass on the seeds of experience to the fruit of their loins.

So I console myself by catering to
the newbies, the neophytes who are anxious to learn how not to kill themselves
at sea, the ones who have not yet been bored by my ravings. And interesting
things happen at sea, believe me.

So, in this vein of dispensing help
for the unwitting, I ask: Do you know why boats so often broach, roll broadside
on, and capsize when they’re running before the wind in large waves? It’s
because when a wave breaks under your stern you have practically no steering
power to keep her running straight. The rudder is suspended in foam, not water,
and it can’t do its job. If you’ve ever been dumped by a big breaker while body
surfing you’ll know the awful feeling of not being able to float high enough to
get your head above water.

And if your boat heels to 45
degrees, you don’t have much steering ability, in any case. Think about it. The
rudder is trying to lift the stern toward the sky as much as it is trying to
turn the stern sideways. And, of course, if you do a 90-degree capsize you
can’t steer at all. If the rudder isn’t totally out of the water, as it would
be on a tubby light-displacement boat, it will be horizontal and unable to turn
the stern either way.

Stability at sea is always a
fascinating subject for sailors, whether they actually get away from the sight
of land or not, and one of the very basic facts about boats is that stability
comes as a cube of the length, other things being more or less equal. This means
that a 30-footer is 72 percent more stable than a 25-footer, which explains why
a 30-footer can stand up to its canvas so much better. It also explains why a
30-footer costs so much more than a 25-footer. But that’s another subject for
neophytes to learn about. Some other day, perhaps. Class dismissed.

Today’s
Thought

It
hath been an opinion that the French are wiser than they seem, and the
Spaniards seem wiser than they are; but howsoever it be between nations,
certainly it is so between man and man.

—Bacon, Essays

Tailpiece

Golfer: “You must be the worst
caddie in the world.”

Caddie: “Oh come now — that would be
far too much of a coincidence.”

(Drop by every Monday, Wednesday,
Friday for a new Mainly about Boats column.)

December 3, 2015

THE WAY OF A SHIP in the sea is not
as great a mystery as the Bible makes it out to be. Most of us can understand
that a boat left to its own resources in heavy seas will tend to adopt a
position that’s roughly broadside on to the wind.

Most keelboats will settle that way,
and be quite happy, when all sail is taken down. Often, there’s a tendency,
especially with sloops, for the bow to drift downwind a bit, which causes the
hull to gather way and forereach. You can counteract that by lashing the helm
to leeward, so that every time she tries to go forward the rudder will point
her up into the wind and stop her in her tracks. This is known as lying ahull, and works fine
until conditions get so bad that your boat is being lifted by large breaking
waves and hurled bodily down to leeward.

Most of us can also understand that
things would be better if the boat could be made to lie with the pointy end
facing the oncoming waves. Then she’d be presenting a much smaller area to the
force of breaking waves, and she’d be much more difficult to overturn.

The question is how do you keep her
facing that way in heavy weather without the help of an engine?If you can keep the bow still in the water,
then of course she will lie downwind as if she were made fast to a post. The
sea anchor, made fast at the bow, is designed to do that, to act as a post,
although it’s a post that actually moves very slowly through the water. But
while it works well for boats with even, shallow draft, the sea anchor won’t
keep a normal keel boat pointed into the waves, no matter whether it’s a fin
keeler or a full keeler.

The Pardeys, a well known and very
experienced cruising couple, claim to have kept their 29-footer pointing more
or less into the waves by setting a sea anchor from a bridle, with one end of
the bridle attached to the bow and the other to the stern. By taking up slack
on one end of the bridle or the other, you can of course alter the way the boat lies.

I’ve never tried this, but I have
serious doubts whether normal people could manage this trick. For a start, I
can’t imagine how I would be able to drag a sea anchor with its mass of small
lines and its 25- to 30-foot spread of parachute material across the deck and
over the side to windward in a heavy gale.

So I have never tried to lie bow-on
to the waves in heavy weather. My method, in a full-keeler, is simply to lie
ahull with the tiller lashed to leeward, until things get too dicey, and then
to run off downwind under a storm job or bare poles. You need lots of sea room
to do that, of course. A fin keeler is best kept moving at all times, but this
needs a fit crew.

Some boats will lie about 45 to 60
degrees off the wind with the help of a special storm mainsail. It’s cut so
that a lot of its area is aft of the boat’s underwater pivot point, the center
of lateral resistance, so that it tries to point her up into the waves all the
time.But most boats these days don’t
come equipped with a storm main, and few of us realize that using a third reef
in the working mainsail instead doesn’t cut it, because that actually moves the
sail’s center of effort farther forward, instead of aft where you want it.

Anyway, the only real way to sort out this
problem is to go out in bad weather and experiment with your own boat. The best
way would be to persuade some experienced sailor with a sister ship to take you
offshore, hunting for a storm, and watch what he or she does to cope with heavy
weather. But I’d say your chances of pulling that off are rather slim.

Today’s
ThoughtEverybody
talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.

— Charles Dudley Warner, Editorial,
the Hartford Courant, c. 1890

Tailpiece

Overhead at a Boy Scout meeting:

“Did you ever have one of those days
when you felt just a little untrustworthy, disloyal, unhelpful, discourteous,
cowardly, and antagonistic toward those wretched old women who always wait for
suckers to help them across the goddam road?”

(Drop by every Monday, Wednesday,
Friday for a new Mainly about Boats column.)

December 1, 2015

SOME YEARS AGO I helped construct a
seaworthiness quiz for Small Craft
Advisor magazine. The quiz was designed to give the owners of small
sailboats a reasonable idea of how seaworthy various designs might be. And,
perhaps more importantly, it demonstrated for them the desirable qualities that
add up to seaworthiness in very small craft.

But now and then someone comes along
and says: "What were you thinking? How can such small boats be
seaworthy?" Well, they say that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing,
and that’s what most of these someones are equipped with.

It’s quite obvious that dinghies and
their ilk can’t meet all the qualities necessary to claim seaworthiness for
larger vessels, ones that can accommodate people in the shelter of a cabin. But
sailing dinghies can indeed provide two of the most important qualities: to
stay afloat and to keep their crews alive.

If those someones had done their
homework, they’d know that tiny open boats have made remarkable ocean voyages
that demonstrate their seaworthiness. I could mention Captain Bligh, for a
start, and Webb Chiles, who singlehandedly sailed his open, 17-foot, Drascombe
Lugger, Chidiock Tichborne, almost
all of the way around the world. And then there was Frank Dye, who sailed his
16-foot Wayfarer dinghy hundreds of miles across the North Sea from Scotland to
Iceland, and to Norway.

These sailors provided an element of
seaworthiness that their small craft lacked, of course. They were all expert
seamen. In fact, when faced with storms at sea, Dye, in his unballasted,
centerboard dinghy, would lower the mast, set a sea anchor so that the boat
faced into the oncoming seas, and then lie down on the floorboards and go to
sleep. “There’s nothing much else to do,” he said. Except pray, perhaps.

In coastal cruising, much of the
seaworthiness of a dinghy like the Wayfarer lies in its ability to run for
shelter close inshore, to maneuver closely among rocks, and to land on a beach
and be pulled up out of harm on inflatable rollers. Larger, less nimble yachts
with deep keels would not dare close a shore like that in heavy weather; their
only recourse then is to seek deep water offshore, where their seaworthiness
will be well tested.

In at least one way, the smaller the
sailing dinghy, the more seaworthy it is. That is when the worst happens and
the boat capsizes. The smaller the boat, the easier it is for the crew to right
her.

The well-found camp-cruising dinghy
cannot sink — she has built-in buoyancy. With a sealed mast and boom for
flotation, she cannot turn completely turtle, and so the crew can stand on the
centerboard to right her. She will also have self-bailers that will draw all
the water from the cockpit once she comes upright again and gains way.

So there’s no doubt in my mind that
small boats can be seaworthy. They can’t provide the shelter and comfort of a
larger vessel, admittedly, but their closeness to the water provides delicate
insights and thrills unknown to those lofty someones who batter their way
through the seas in their seaborne chariots, carefully insulated from both the
sea’s danger and its intimate delights.

Today’s
Thought

There
are many advantages in sea-voyaging, but security is not one of them.— Sadi (Emerson, English Traits: The
Voyage)

Tailpiece

“That’s a funny-looking dog you’ve
got there.”

“What? I’ll have you know I paid
$1,000 for this dog. He’s part terrier and part bull.”